3 Simple Steps to Firing *THAT* Client
“kindness, compassion and empathy”
You wake up in the morning after a good night’s rest, you grab your phone to scroll through the ‘gram, and as you open your phone you see a text notification from that client.
(Yup, you know who I’m talking about. Let’s be honest, they immediately came to your mind when you read that sentence).
You haven’t even gotten out of bed and you already know that you don’t want to deal with this today.
So you step out of the shower and you’ve already played out the scenario with your client in your head 10 times, trying to figure out how to deal with them.
You wish you could predict it all. Your day has barely begun and you’re already exhausted.
Dealing with that client used to stress me the ‘eff out! It had me wishing they would just stop coming to see me. I know you’ve thought about it too, and you’ve thought it would be nice to be able to fire a client but you have no idea how to do it.
I have so been there. I really want you to avoid the situations I’ve had so I’m showing you 3 simple steps to firing a client in a professional and polite way that’ll have you feeling good about the situation.
3 Simple Steps to Firing THAT Client:
Step 1: Recognize that your fears around firing a client stems from your fear of confrontation
You’re scared of having an honest conversation. I get it. Confrontation is scary!
I used to avoid conversations out of the fear of how someone would react. I would try to map out exactly how the conversation would go, but would end up spiralling into more anxiety.
Reframing these moments so that it’s not confrontational is the first step.
Step 2: Recognize that you’re not doing something to or at someone, but for them
Everything that you do in your business, whether you're professionally and politely firing a client or anything else, I want you to remember this motto:
do everything with kindness, compassion, and empathy.
Show your clients you're not doing something to them or at them, but you're doing it for them.
I recently had to fire a client who was always unhappy with her hair and always came back for fix after fix. This is how I showed her that ending our relationship was a good thing for her:
“Hey, you deserve to love your hair and it really matters to me that you do. And so what I'm going to do moving forward is suggest that you go somewhere else to get your hair done so that you can get taken care of the way you deserve to get taken care of. 'Cause I'm not able to do that and provide that for you.”
Now, will their feelings be hurt? Will they maybe be upset? Quite possibly.
I hate to say that. But this really keeps you in control of the scenario.
Step 3: Recognize that the anxiety you’re feeling is all in the anticipation
I've sat on my bed many mornings, endlessly scrolling, hoping that I can get this anxiety out of my head.
I can't tell you how many years that occupied that brain and how it felt like the weight of the world was on me every single morning.
Thoughts like
what's going to happen today?
what client's coming in?
who's going to be unhappy?
constantly bombarded my mind.
But, I know you're like me and that anxiety just occupies 99.9% of our brain and all the positive things just end up in this tiny little corner that we forget about.
But I’ve found a hack for this anxiety!
The anxiety is in the anticipation, right? Anxiety comes from trying to control the future. So if we jump before we know where to land we can help diminish the anxiety.
The best way to get that anxiety gone is to deal with it head-on and face to face.
Instead of trying to plan out the entire scenario in your head. Here’s a mantra for you:
“I want to take care of this person. I want to be clear with this person. I want to be honest with this person. And I want to take deep breaths and go slow.”
The best way I can explain this anxiety and fear we have about having these conversations is that all that anxiety -that stress - will go away instantly as soon as you get into the conversation.
If you just meet the conversation head on, you meet that moment head on, and it will melt away.
I teach a lot more of this inside of my Rock Your Business program, which is opening up for enrolment in January.
I know that stress and anxiety is real and I know how much it can affect not just our work, but our day to day lives.
I am here for you. I don't want you to have to go through what I've had to go through.
Go on, binge the latest posts (you know you wanna)…
